Gurpal Singh vs State of Haryana and Others

S.S. Sodhi, J.—Denial of appointment of a regularly selected candidate on the plea that the post for which he had been selected was no longer available, it having been filled, in the meanwhile, by the regularisation of the services of an employee who had been appointed to it on adhoc basis, such ad hoc appointee having completed the requisite qualifying period of service by virtue of an interim order of this Court, is what constitutes the challenge in this writ petition.

To give the relevant factual background, in September, 1987, the Department of Industrial Training and Vocational Education, Haryana, sent a requisition to the Subordinate Services Selection Board, Haryana, for filling up 51 vacancies of Language Teachers (English). As a result of this selection recommendations for filling up of 27 posts from the general category were received in January 1988 but only 19 out of the 27 persons so recommended were, however, given appointment. The remaining 18, including the petitioner, were denied appointment on the ground that no posts were available for them, as 18 persons who had been given ad hoc appointment to these posts had in the meanwhile, completed two years service by December 3, 1990 and their services had consequently been regularised with effect from January 1, 1991, in accordance with the notification issued by the Haryana Government by its letter No, GSR-II/Cost/Art/309/91 dated February 28, 1991.

Before proceeding further, it would be pertinent to note here that the said 18 ad hoc employees whose services had been regularised had as per their letter of appointment, been given this employment, "for a period of three months, or till regular candidate duly recommended by the Subordinate Services Selection Board, Haryana, joins whichever is earlier." It was during this period of their adhoc appointment that they approached this court in writ proceedings and continued in service thereafter by virtue of the interim orders passed by this Court staying the termination of their services, presumably pending the decision of the Supreme Court in SLP 16471 of 1988 (State of Haryana v. Piara Singh (1992) 102 P.L.R. 547 It was in these circumstances that they continued in service till December 31, 1990 and thereby completed two years service by that date and this is what then led to the regularisation of their services.

It will, thus, be seen that the interim order passed by this Court staying the termination of the services of adhoc employees operated first to delay and later as a bar to the appointment of regularly selected candidates -- a consequence that could never have been intended. Be that as it may, there can be no manner of doubt that in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution pertaining to regularisation of services of adhoc employees on the completion of the specified period or conditions, the position to be seen is as on the date of the filing of the petition. In other words, the petitioner cannot, in such a case, be permitted to add on the period of his continuance in service by virtue of an interim order passed by the High Court, and to thereby fulfil the requisite length of service to claim regularisation of his services. This is unfortunately precisely what has happened in the regularsation of the services of the said 18 adhoc employees and now this wrong stands in the way of the petitioner being given appointment to the post for which he had been selected, after a regular selection by the competent authority.

Such being the circumstances, interests of justice clearly render it imperative to hold that the fact that the post which the petitioner was rightly entitled to be appointed to, having ceased to be available, by the regularisation of the services of an adhoc employee, who on the date of the filing of the writ petition by him, was not so entitled, cannot be held against the petitioner, to deny him the relief claimed.

We consequently hereby direct the respondents to give appointment to the petitioner to the post for which he had been selected, whether by the creation of an additional post or by making available to him one of the posts against which the services of the said 18 adhoc employees had, prima facie, been wrongly regularised, or otherwise.

This writ petition is allowed in these terms. Counsel''s fee Rs. 500/-.